They are on excellent terms with the ranch cat and kittens. The
three chief fighting dogs, who do not follow the trail, are the most
affectionate of all, and, moreover, they climb trees! Yesterday we got
a big lynx in the top of a pinon tree--a low, spreading kind of
pine--about thirty feet tall. Turk, the bloodhound, followed him up, and
after much sprawling actually got to the very top, within a couple of
feet of him. Then, when the lynx was shot out of the tree, Turk, after a
short scramble, took a header down through the branches, landing with
a bounce on his back. Tony, one of the half-breed bull-dogs, takes such
headers on an average at least once for every animal we put up a tree.
We have nice little horses which climb the most extraordinary places you
can imagine. Get Mother to show you some of Gustave Dore's trees; the
trees on these mountains look just like them.



THE PIG NAMED MAUDE

Keystone Ranch, Jan. 29, 1901

DARLING LITTLE ETHEL:

You would be much amused with the animals round the ranch. The most
thoroughly independent and self-possessed of them is a large white pig
which we have christened Maude. She goes everywhere at her own will; she
picks up scraps from the dogs, who bay dismally at her, but know they
have no right to kill her; and then she eats the green alfalfa hay from
the two milch cows who live in the big corral with the horses. One of
the dogs has just had a litter of puppies; you would love them, with
their little wrinkled noses and squeaky voices.